


Tuesday

by dragonflybeach



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Canon Temporary Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Memories, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Stream of Consciousness, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, and Relapse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 02:42:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16255040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonflybeach/pseuds/dragonflybeach
Summary: Steve wakes up three days and 67 years after Bucky fell off the train.





	Tuesday

Steve's first mission with the Strike Team was on a Tuesday.

Bucky once said nothing important ever happened on Tuesdays. Steve's ma pointed out that Steve and Bucky had met on a Tuesday and that was pretty much the most important thing that had ever happened to Bucky.

Steve wasn’t sure if she actually remembered what day it had been, or if she just said that to be contrary to Bucky. He and Bucky didn’t remember what day it was, but then again, they had only been six and seven years old at the time. 

A couple weeks after aliens and Howard's son fell out of a hole in the sky over New York, when Steve's injuries were healed but Clint was just starting to hobble around without crutches, Nick Fury had called with a mission.

Some splinter cell terrorist group, Al-Qaeda wannabes, had seized a small chemical plant in the Middle East and were probably converting it to make chemical weapons. Fury had to explain what Al-Qaeda was.

Steve was sent in with the Strike Team, on a mission that was like and unlike what the Howling Commandos had done throughout a war that ended before any of these men were born.

They crept across desert sands rather than through a European forest. Instead of gloomy fog, there was bright sunshine. The enemy wore turbans instead of helmets and spoke Arabic instead of German.

But when Steve, who was on point of course, was fighting two men and a third rushed at him, the third one was dropped by a sniper's bullet from over Steve's left shoulder.

Steve knocked out his opponents and turned, half expecting to see Bucky, although he'd been gone for six weeks, five days and 67 years. A dark haired man nodded at him, but it was the wrong one, his eyes brown and sharp like Peggy's had been once, his tac jacket black instead of blue, and his smile tight like Bucky's had been after Azzano.

Steve smiled back and wanted to throw up.

Rumlow was a good soldier, a good leader. He fought well at Steve's back. He followed orders. He didn't leave men behind. He thought quickly on his feet. He laughed when Steve jumped out of a plane without a parachute.

He never told Steve that he was full of shit or grabbed Steve’s collar and yelled while he shook or shook Steve for taking stupid chances in the midst of a fight.

They worked missions together regularly, had beers together after debrief, trained together in between, and never had a personal conversation.

* * *

 

On their fourth mission together, they recovered stolen government secrets in a battle that was more fierce than it should have been, and they lost Williams, a man with a wide smile and a sense of humor that reminded Steve too much of Gabe Jones. 

Steve came home to a dark apartment, quiet like a grave, and realized the only time he felt alive was on a mission.

James Buchanan Barnes had a headstone at Arlington, but the grave was empty, and Steve had never been there.

It was a Sunday.

Steve's ma had died on a Sunday. The priest came out, prayed her last rites, and was back at church in time for evening mass. Sister Mary Ruth, who used to be Bobby Davenport’s Aunt Alice before she took her vows, had stayed with Steve and Bucky until long after dark.

* * *

 

Two days later Steve and Rumlow sparred in the S.H.I.E.L.D. gym, Steve pushing Rumlow to his limits and Rumlow pushing back harder than anyone else had in 67 years. In the shower afterward, they were washing up one minute, and the next Steve had Rumlow shoved against the wall, kissing hard enough to bruise and Rumlow's soapy hands in Steve's hair.

It was a Tuesday.

The first time Steve kissed Bucky had been on a Tuesday.

 

* * *

 

They became a thing that wasn't really a thing, which was apparently pretty acceptable in the 21st century. They brought each other to completion with hands and mouths, but they didn't date, they didn't hang out, they didn't talk about feelings, they didn't make promises. They met in impersonal places, like empty offices in S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and hotel rooms.

It was perfectly fine with Steve, who came down Rumlow's throat and then came home to the apartment he shared with Bucky's ghost.

Natasha wanted Steve to go out and meet people. She said it wasn't healthy for him to sit around his apartment all the time, watched by seven sets of eyes from the photographs on his book case.

Six of them wore fatigues in a photo taken after a successful mission, in the bombed out ruins of some town in France. The seventh wore a black dress suit, but Steve figured that if S.H.I.E.L.D. can declare Bucky Barnes their first martyr, Steve can declare Phil Coulson the last of the Howling Commandos.

The rest of the world thought there were 68 years between those photos, but to Steve they had both been taken in the past two years.

Nat kept trying to set him up with women she knew.

Steve struck up a conversation with another jogger, an airman. That counted as meeting people, right?

It was a Thursday.

Steve found Bucky in Azzano on a Thursday.

* * *

 

Steve's last mission with the Strike Team was on a Friday.

They left on Thursday, but by the time they jumped onto a highjacked ship to rescue the hostages, it had been early Friday morning.

Steve didn't flinch when the bullet came over his left shoulder, taking out the man holding the gun. He turned to see Rumlow, a teasing smile, a joke about Steve needing backup. Steve knew by now he would never turn and see Bucky behind him again.

It didn't mean he stopped wishing and imagining.  

It was still Friday when Steve and Rumlow left the debrief and went to a hotel room.

Rumlow brought condoms, but Steve said no, he still wasn't ready for that.

He wasn't ready to share that with anyone else, the act that had only belonged to him and Bucky.

Rumlow shrugged, tossed them aside, and took off his pants. Steve followed his lead.

Bucky had shipped off to Europe on a Friday.

* * *

 

A week and a few days later, Steve came home on a Monday night to find Nick Fury in his apartment. There had been a man on a roof with a metal arm, who caught Steve's shield without looking, like he knew Steve would throw it, who looked at Steve for a moment before throwing it back.

Steve dreamed about Bucky that night, during the whole 37 minutes he had actually closed his eyes in the hospital waiting room, about Bucky picking up the shield on the train and the moment he wasn't on the train any more. 

Bucky's draft letter had come on a Monday.

 

* * *

 

The confrontation in the elevator had happened on Tuesday.

Rumlow said it wasn't personal. Steve believed him. Rumlow was just following someone's orders.

Steve just wished there had been some kind of feeling in his eyes when he said it.

He wondered, if he had made more of an effort, if he had tried to have a relationship with Rumlow instead of just using the man for a physical release, would it have made any difference.

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind, because he had to escape, and because he knew that any relationship he tried to have with anyone who wasn't Bucky would have been a lie.

A few hours later, Steve kissed Natasha.

It was a ruse, a cover, to keep Rumlow from spotting them in the mall.

It felt more real than any of the kisses Steve had shared with a man he had been having a sexual relationship with for over a year.

The first time Bucky had blown Steve, in the dark in Steve’s room where no one else could see, had been on a Tuesday.

* * *

 

When Steve and Natasha needed help the next morning, they went to Sam, the airman.

There was more concern and warmth in the eyes of someone Steve had met three times than there had ever been in Rumlow's after they had been intimate.

It was a Wednesday.

Steve had lost his virginity on a Wednesday.

* * *

 

 

Steve and Natasha had stolen Sam's wings on Wednesday, and he helped them kidnap Sitwell on Thursday.

Someone kidnapped Sitwell right back, snatched him out of the car and threw him in front of a truck. The man with the metal arm, the man who handled Steve's shield like it had been his own once.

The man who set off every alarm bell and whistle in Steve's head.

He fought Steve in the streets of DC, fought harder than any human than Steve ever fought, fought almost as hard as Thor.

The mask came off, and it was Bucky.

The man didn't recognize Steve, even asked "Who the hell is Bucky?" but Steve knew him. Steve’s soul recognized its other half in that moment as it had recognized him across the room in Azzano, as it had been trying to tell Steve since the night Fury was shot.

Bucky didn't know him. Bucky was going to kill him, and Steve couldn't find it in himself to raise a hand to stop it. 

But Sam and Natasha stopped it, and in the blink of an eye, Bucky was gone.

Then Rumlow was there, and Rollins had his gun to Steve's head, and Rumlow said "Not here."

Rumlow was going to kill him, just following orders like a good soldier.

A week ago, Steve would have welcomed it, would have handed Rumlow the gun, so he could see Bucky again.

Now, he would kill all of them if he had to, so he could get away, so he could find Bucky.

It was still Thursday. 

Bucky fell on a Thursday.

 

* * *

 

Steve fell on a Thursday.

He fell off an exploding helicarrier into a river, unconscious, and woke up in a hospital bed with Sam at his side.

Bucky had pulled Steve out of the river and then vanished.

Bucky was alive and he was out there somewhere and Steve was going to bring him home.

Steve didn't know what day it was when he woke up. 

* * *

 

Two years later, Steve was in an outdoor market in Lagos on a Thursday.

Rumlow was their mission.

Steve had studied the psychological profile that had been done before Rumlow escaped from custody. Steve had read the words 'sociopath' and 'attachment disorder'. Rumlow never mentioned his relationship with Captain America.

The psychologist believed Rumlow was incapable of loving anyone, but when Steve looked in his eyes that day, when Rumlow snarled "Your Bucky", Steve knew that he was at least capable of jealousy.

Steve was struck by the sudden realization that Rumlow had known Bucky was alive. He had known Bucky was alive and kept the information from Steve.

He was blinded by rage and grief and missed the bomb vest. Rumlow and innocent people died.

Steve lived, thanks to Wanda.

The last time Steve had seen Bucky was on a Thursday.

* * *

 

Steve stood in an apartment in Romania on a Tuesday.

Bucky had chocolate bars on top of his fridge and a picture of Steve in uniform in his journal and said "You're Steve."

They fought side by side and back to back like they had in the war, except this time, Buck ran and Steve followed.

They were arrested and taken to Berlin by the UN.

Bucky looked at Steve, then looked away, but he was alive, and they were in the same building.

Steve found Bucky on a Tuesday.


End file.
